In government he is best known for serving as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under George H. W. Bush and as Chairman of a Congressional Advisory Commission on the Consumer Price Index.[4] That commission, known as the Boskin Commission, is controversial for introducing changes into the calculation of the Consumer Price Index that some critics believe make the index report inflation as lower than it actually is.

Boskin was credited as having written the "worst op-ed in history" for his March 6, 2009 Wall Street Journal article "Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow" by the Washington Post WonkBlog. In that article, Boskin ignored the months-long financial crisis, and blamed newly inaugurated President Obama for the dropping Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Dow average instead rose dramatically during the first six years of President Obama's administration.[5]

"Local Government Tax and Product Competition and the Optimal Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, January 1973.

"Economics of the Labor Supply," in G. Cain and H. Watts, eds., Labor Supply and Income Maintenance, Rand McNally, 1973.

"Theoretical Models of Local Government Finance," Proceedings of the 26th Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance, 1973.

"A Conditional Logic Model of Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, March 1974.

"The Effects of Government Expenditures and Taxes on Female Labor," American Economic Review, May 1974.

"Regression Analysis when the Dependent Variable is Truncated Lognormal: with an Application to the Determinants of the Duration of Welfare Dependency," (with T. Amemiya), International Economic Review, June 1974.

"Efficiency Aspects of the Differential Tax Treatment of Market and Household Economic Activity," Journal of Public Economics, February 1975.

"Lessons from the New Jersey-Pennsylvania Income Maintenance Experiment," in M. Timpane and A. Rivlin, eds., Evaluating the New Jersey-Pennsylvania Income Maintenance Experiment, 1975.

"Estate Taxation and Charitable Bequests," Journal of Public Economics, January 1976.

"Recent Econometric Research in Public Finance," American Economic Review, May 1976.

"The Economic Common Sense of the Debate over Controlling Nuclear Power Development," in W. Reynolds, ed., The California Nuclear Initiative, Stanford University Press, 1976; also in Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California

"Interrelationships Among the Choice of Tax Base, Tax Rates and the Unit and Time Period of Account in the Design of an Optimal Tax System," in H. Aaron and M. Boskin, eds., The Economics of Taxation, Brookings, 1980.

"The Effect of Social Security on Retirement in the Early 1970's (with M. Hurd), Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1984.

"Poverty Among the Elderly: Where Are the Holes in the Safety Net?" (with J. Shoven), paper presented at the NBER Conference on Pensions and the U.S. Economy, Baltimore, MD, March 21–22, 1985, in Z. Bodie, J Shoven, and D. Wise, eds., Pensions in the U.S. Economy, University of Chicago Press, 1988.

"Theoretical and Empirical Issues in the Measurement, Evaluation and Interpretation of Post-War U.S. Saving," in G. Adams and S. Wachter, eds., Saving and Capital Formation: The Policy Options, Lexington Books/D.C. Health, 1986.

"Saving and Economic Growth in the United States: Policy Issues and Options," U.S. Congress, A Symposium on the 40th Anniversary of the Joint Economic Committee, January 16–17, 1986.

"New Estimates of the Effects of Taxes on the International Location of Investment," (with W. Gale), in M. Feldstein, ed., The Effects of Taxation on Capital Formation, University of Chicago Press, 1987.

"Social Security: A Financial Appraisal within and Across Generations," (with J. Shoven, L. Kotlikoff and D. Puffert), National Tax Journal, March 1987.

"A Closer Look at Saving Rates in the United States and Japan," (with J. Roberts), in J. Shoven, ed., Government Policy Towards Industry in the U.S. and Japan, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

"Social Security and the American Family," in Federal Tax Policy, ed. by L. Summers, 1987.

"New Estimates of the State and Local Government Capital Stock and Net Investment," (with M. Robinson and A. Huber), NBER Working Paper, 1987.

"Alternative Concepts and Measures of Federal Deficits and Debt and Their Impact on Economic Activity," in K. Arrow and M. Boskin, eds., Economics of Public Debt, MacMillan for the International Economic Association, 1988. (NBER Working Paper, 1987).

"Government Saving, Capital Formation and Wealth in the United States, 1947–1985," (with M. Robinson and A.Huber) in R. Lipsey and H. Stone, eds., The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, The University of Chicago Press, 1989.

"Issues in the Measurement and Interpretation of Saving and Wealth," in E. Berndt and J. Triplett, eds., Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

"Capital Formation and Economic Growth," (with L. Lau) in Technology and Economics: A Volume Commemorating Ralph Landau's Service to the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy Press, 1991.

"An Economist's Evaluation of the Political Discourse on Fundamental Tax Reform Proposals," Center for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper Series Publication No. 446, December 1995.

"Toward a More Accurate Measure of the Cost of Living: Final Report to the Senate Finance Committee," (with E. Dulberger, R. Gordon, Z. Griliches and D. Jorgenson), Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, December 1996.